An Epidemic of Anti-Semitism? Not So Fast

Although there is ample reason to fear rising manifestations of anti-Semitism in the U.S., writes David E. Bernstein, there is in fact little reason to believe that hostile attitudes toward Jews have risen dramatically. He cites a recent study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as evidence:

While belief in stereotypes about Jews remains widespread, the ADL found that only 11 percent of American adults believed in six or more of the eleven stereotypes tested—a tie for the lowest percentage ever. By contrast, the first year the ADL undertook this study, the figure was 29 percent. So much for the constant refrain from the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt and others that we are living through “the worst period of anti-Semitism in the United States since the 1930s.”

Now, I admit that ADL methodology is far from perfect, but it does provide a basis for comparison, and there has been no spike, or even an increase, in anti-Semitism because of Donald Trump or anyone else. The problem of anti-Semitism in the United States is a problem of the far-left and far-right fringes, and the way social media, technology, partisanship, and the decline of media gatekeepers have allowed them to have a much louder voice. These fringes need to be isolated; the Trump administration shouldn’t be giving discretionary media credentials to far-right anti-Semites, and Bernie Sanders shouldn’t be allying with Linda Sarsour, Rashida Tlaib, and company. And of course better security and preemptive work by law enforcement is needed to stop what does appear to be a spike in anti-Semitic violence.

But for those who thought that the U.S. was heading toward the sort of commonplace, mainstream anti-Semitism prevalent in some European countries, you can breathe a sigh of relief, at least for now.

Read more at Volokh Conspiracy

More about: ADL, American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society